A few years back, I read an article about an expat who lived in Greece until he became so fluent in Greek that he understood everything that was going on around him, everything that was being said.
Then he had to leave.
What he had liked about Greece (until fluency hit) was the ability to tune out the white noise. The inane conversations. The ads. The background chatter. The signs.
For me, Turkey became harder and harder to deal with, the more I knew. The better my Turkish, the more I understood my surroundings and my place in them. This was partly horrifying and partly reassuring. I liked being able to successfully order kebabs by phone at midnight or have mutually intelligible animated taxi conversations about arranged marriages in Turkish but I grew to hate overhearing (and reading about) the racist, sexist, closed minded bullshit spouted far too frequently for comfort.
In China, aside from the 140 or so characters I have managed to wedge into my long term memory, I’m functionally illiterate. Luckily, my literacy extends to menu words primarily (yes, I even know how to write the one for garlic sprouts– very useful!), along with a few very random ones for, say, rebel or cat or archer’s thimble. I’m all for practicality.
I have not reached the point where I can’t tune things out though. I’m still 2350 characters away from the basic literacy level of your average 8 year old and Shanghainese is different enough from Mandarin so that my 3.5 half hearted years of studying Mandarin can be easily overridden.
It’s a bit like in the Peanuts cartoons when the adults talk. Waaah-wah-wah.
Coming home is different.
I understand everything here, including the subtext. And I can’t tune anything out.
None of these signs say anything I haven’t already seen or heard a million times before in a dozen or two other countries. If I was functionally literate in Mandarin, I’m certain I’d pass them on every street. The thing is, I can’t read them without effort. So I don’t.
The signs below are all from one 20 minute walk into town the other day.
I can’t help feeling that a huge reason why I’ve chosen to live in difficult places for the past two decades is so I can tune out the white noise around me.
Ladies and gents, I give you the Tour de No: the Comox Valley Edition.
Not that I was going to, but, okay.
I know when I’m not welcome
I suppose it doesn’t matter, since I don’t own a car anyway…
I don’t want to walk on your stinking land anyway. Yo.
Not that I smoke, but…
Sigh.
And… yeah.
Double!
My dad, with an imaginary stogie, flouting the law.
13 Responses
Hahaha love this! Maybe an idea for a whole new blog?!
Waegook Tom recently posted..Hallim Park, Or Adventures of a Non-Botanist
I may need to add that to my list of Blogs-to-Start…
NO FUN CITY! That is Vancouver’s nickname! Maybe its the same on the island as well?
Andrea recently posted..#39 Thing to do the year your turn 40.
Yep, pretty much, though it depends on how you define fun. Fun is possible. There are just a lot of rules governing how you’re allowed to have fun. Also, you get a lot of people being passive aggressive about perceived wrongdoings and/or stubbornly vehement about enforcing rules that don’t really matter or exist.
I do so love my little bubble of ignorance. I’m very worried about my return to the States & actually being able to understand all the conversations. I remember going to New Orleans when I was living in Japan, and overhearing some of the most appalling conversations and thinking, “Don’t these people know I can UNDERSTAND them?! Gah!”
Sally recently posted..Fighting the Common Cold in Kunming
Totally! I like living under the illusion that people are saying interesting things…
I live in Beijing, and like you, I am functionally illiterate. But that doesn’t stop me from finding signs everywhere with as many as 15 little circles with things crossed out in them that I’m pretty sure mean NO. In Ritan Park, there is a sign that forbids fireworks, sleeping, dogs, smoking, something that looks like doing sexy poses which I assume just means sleeping on benches, knives, bombs (I could have sworn those were totally allowed!), picking flowers, spitting, and on, and on, and on! I don’t have a picture, but I do have this one from an elevator: “prohibition hop”
http://www.laurajaramillo.com/post/21841259421/prohibition-hop-my-single-favorite-piece-of
I remember that prohibition hop picture from when you first posted it! Love it! It should be a new dance craze. Shanghai’s not so heavy handed with the signs with the crossed out circles. Mostly it’s about littering, spitting and smoking. I can fairly easily ignore them, maybe because they aren’t words but rather stick figures…
This post made me giggle so hard I had to say something.
There seems to be plenty of things you’re not permitted to do in the Western world.
Having any fun seems to be part of it.
ANGLO/Dale recently posted..Why I Travel (by ITALIAN)
I feel the exact same way as you when I go back to america for a short visit. Everyone thinks America is “land of the free” but actually, I feel like I have much more freedom in China.
In america you can’t jaywalk, can’t cut someone off, can’t go anywhere or do anything. You step a tiny toe on someones property and they freak out at you.
A few winters ago I went back to america after a big storm. Having no car, I walked about half a mile to the local CVS to buy things. The sidewalks had been plowed over so I had to walk on the side of the road. I actually feared that if the police saw me I would get in trouble for walking. (in my hometown, nobody walks, everyone has a car)
But in china things feel more free. Like, if you see a field and you want to walk in it, you can just do it. Sure, maybe someone will ask you to leave, but they’ll be so shocked to see a foreigner they’ll probably just stare. You can cross the street wherever you want, you can pee wherever you want, you can throw an orange peel on the ground and not feel like the world’s worst citizen.
So as highly monitored and controlled as china is, it also feels very free and relaxed at times. And I don’t think people who have never been here understand that.
Becky recently posted..So What Should I Say?
About the language thing – I feel the same way in Paris. I used to love French, adore it, think it was the most beautiful language (next to Italian) in the world. Now that I understand parts of it, I can’t ever just tune it out and enjoy its round lyrical beauty. Makes me sad.
Edna recently posted..The 5 best things I ate in Thailand
Utterly off topic, I found your blog because, well my travel blog is called Ephemerratic. And on my blog I have a Detritus category for things that don’t fit elsewhere.
Either the universe has meant us to be friends. Or fierce enemies, filling each other’s inboxes and comment streams with Chinese mop spam.
Lauren, Ephemerratic recently posted..Call me “Captain,” because I’m eating beef heart
Ha! That is serendipitously awesome. I veer away from nurturing new enemies so I suppose I shall welcome you, my doppelgänger in name, into the ephemeral folds. I mean, what are the nerdy odds?